Months after Chantal’s fierce flooding, some Durhamites’ homes are barely habitable 

When Tropical Storm Chantal hit Durham on July 6, 77-year-old Fred Foster lost nearly everything. 

His military uniforms? Washed down the Eno River. His dream Mercedes? Submerged and completely unusable. His home? Close to $100,000 in damages.

Five months later, Foster and his wife are living on the second floor of his home, because the first floor remains gutted and uninhabitable. Even though he paid off his home 10 years ago, he’s once again in debt from a disaster recovery loan from the federal Small Business Administration. And, despite applying for a state grant specifically for victims of Chantal, he has yet to receive that money.

“We were ready to relax and enjoy our lives. House was paid for, we pay our expenses out of our retirement Social Security,” said Foster, a retired N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles employee and former county commissioner. “Then all of a sudden, the house is empty. Everything you paid for and put in here is gone. Now we’re on our own.”

Over 50 homes in North Durham’s Old Farm, a 470-home neighborhood where Foster has resided since 1985, were flooded in the storm. Now, around 20 of those remain damaged, their owners – those who, like Foster, lacked flood insurance – are unable to complete the necessary repairs.

They’ve sought help. But five months after the storm, they’re still waiting. 

Residents want help rebuilding their damaged homes, and answers on why disaster assistance has been so slow. They also want to know how the city and state plan to handle the next destructive storm. 

Foster has grown exasperated by the government’s inaction, wondering, “Why are you guys not willing to help us out?” 

He also worries about the future. “What can you do to help mitigate these problems so folks don’t have to continue to rebuild and borrow money?”

Streets like lakes  

The Old Farm neighborhood is a quiet suburban neighborhood across Roxboro Street from West Point on the Eno city park. A predominantly Black neighborhood, it includes a mix of multi-family condo complexes and brick and panelled single-family homes dating from the 1960s and 1970s. 

When Chantal hit, nearly 80 individuals were evacuated from Old Farm by boat. Waters nearly reached the ceilings inside some homes, and the streets looked like lakes. 

On Aug. 5, Governor Josh Stein declared Chantal a state disaster and activated state grants for individuals affected by the storm. The state also requested public assistance from the federal government. A month later, the Trump administration finally declared Chantal a major disaster, unlocking $32 million in aid. However, the federal dollars will only reimburse municipalities and counties for emergency money already spent — not individuals.

 State Sen. Sophia Chitlik, who represents Old Farm and much of Durham County, criticized the Chantal response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which cancelled $11 billion in disaster payments to states in October and faces reduced funding in the Trump administration’s proposed budget. 

“In [Hurricane] Fran, you had immediate money go out because it was FEMA money,” Chitlik said. “But for Chantal, the state had to essentially stand up our own systems. And the reason the state had to step up in that way was because FEMA wasn’t responding.”

Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams agrees. After Fran, FEMA conducted damage assessments and provided funding for buyouts. After Chantal, the city and county handled much of the disaster response coordination, including opening a Disaster Recovery Center, he said.  

“This is really about the inaction of the federal government,” Williams said. “Local governments are left without the capacity to address these things, and that’s really frustrating.”     

In response to an email from The 9th Street Journal, a FEMA spokesman stated: “Federal assets are only used when a governor requests them from FEMA because state assets are overwhelmed.”

“North Carolina did not request individual assistance for Durham County following Tropical Storm Chantal,” said Gerard Hammink, a FEMA spokesperson. “Public assistance was requested and approved.”

Brian Haines, a spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Public Safety, agrees the state did not ask for personnel from FEMA immediately after the storm.

“All disasters begin and end locally in North Carolina,” Haines said. “What this means is if an event is larger than a local response can handle, they request assistance. If the state lacks the resources to manage the event, it then requests assistance from FEMA. In the case of Chantal, the state didn’t need any resources from FEMA for the response.”

Individual assistance from FEMA is only available for storms that damage at least 500 homes. Chantal didn’t meet that threshold, so the state did not request individual assistance, Haines said. 

So, this time around — unlike after Hurricane Fran — the city cannot use federal dollars to purchase impacted homes from residents. 

To Senator Chitlik, those FEMA rules are part of the problem. 

“FEMA should be providing cash…. assistance, and no- and low-interest loans,” Chitlik said. “They’re not. They’re not showing up in a disaster when Americans need them.”

Without federal aid, many residents are either staying and hoping for approval for state assistance grants or trying to sell their homes on the private market. 

Outdated Maps

One group of residents fared better. They weren’t spared from the storm. But because they had flood insurance, they received payouts from insurance companies to start reconstruction. Those residents’ front yards display signs from contractors, advertising repairs.

Yet only about 30% of impacted Old Farm families had flood insurance before Chantal, says neighborhood association president Trey Gilmore. 

Mortgage companies require flood insurance for homes in a 100-year floodplain. The state, in partnership with FEMA, decides which homes meet that definition, creating maps that show flooding risk. FEMA provides final approval for the maps.

The Eno River runs directly parallel to Old Farm, with some neighborhood homes within 100 feet of the riverbank. Nevertheless, FEMA maps classify only a small portion of Old Farm homes as being in a 100-year floodplain, also known as a “Special Flood Hazard Area.” Neighboring homes that appear equidistant from the river have different statuses; for example, one home on Hedgerow Place is considered “Minimal Risk” while another home across the street is classified as within the 100-year floodplain. 

The Old Farm maps, like all Durham County floodplain maps, were last updated in 2018. Congress requires that the federal government review national flood maps every five years, but it need not update them that frequently.

Hammink referred questions about the maps to the state government. Brian Haines, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Public Safety, said Durham’s floodplain maps are “within the normal range for updates.”

“Floodplain maps are updated on a 10–15-year cycle, and the next update is scheduled to begin in 2027 for the county,” Haines said. 

However, flood risks have risen as a result of a warming climate, said Miyuki Hino, an associate professor of city and regional planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. As a result, areas outside the 100-year floodplains are flooding more frequently, and floodplain maps are quickly outdated. 

“Warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture,” Hino said. “The amount of rain we are seeing in more extreme rainfall events is going up. Chantal is a good example of that.”

“Climate change is a factor that should push us collectively to invest in maps and updating often,” Hino said.

             Floodwaters rage through Old Farm, for a second time

From Foster’s sideyard, the Eno River is almost in view, barely obscured by a row of trees. Chantal marked the second time that the river overflowed following a storm, causing major flooding for Foster and his neighbors. In 1996, Hurricane Fran caused floodwaters to reach Foster’s doorstep, forcing him to replace his waterlogged car. 

Flood insurance is one way homeowners can be made whole after a disaster. In other cases, the government has stepped in and bought property that’s at high risk of repeated flooding. That happened after Hurricane Fran, when the City of Durham purchased some Old Farm homes with federal funding. Foster reached out to the city to see if his home could be acquired, too. 

The answer was no. A 1999 letter from the city’s Department of Public Works says the N.C. Division of Environmental Management “calculated the ratio of benefits to cost” for purchasing homes and recommended which homes at high risk of flooding should be purchased. Nineteen homes were on the list. Foster’s was not among them.

While Foster’s home was not purchased, two neighboring homes were: the house two doors down and a house diagonally across the street. The empty lots where their homes once stood are now part of Old Farm Park. If Foster walks out to get the mail, he sees parkland where he once saw neighbors’ houses. 

The North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, a division of the N.C. Department of Public Safety, now oversees buyouts following disasters. The department, which is legally required to retain records for only seven years after it closes a case, closed out its Hurricane Fran response in August 2003. It can’t explain why Foster’s home wasn’t purchased back in the 1990s, except that North Carolina typically relies on the 100-year flood mark for buyouts. 

“At best, I could say that whatever flood zone the home was in was above the 100-year mark, which is two feet above flood level,” said Haines. 

‘This was a special neighborhood’

For 38-year-old resident Shala Perla, Chantal brought up nightmarish memories from Hurricane Floyd, which flooded her hometown, Tarboro, and neighboring Princeville when she was just 12 years old. 

“I was around my son’s age,” Perla said. “Floyd flooded out our school, our town, Princeville… everything was gone. Chantal triggered me a bit, because I was like ‘Oh, no. What is this going to look like?’”

Many predominantly Black N.C. communities like Princeville were built on low-lying land, vulnerable to floods. Old Farm, built in 1967, became a refuge for many middle-class families moving away from historically Black neighborhoods broken up by urban renewal. 

“This was a special neighborhood,” Gilmore said. He grew up in Old Farm and moved back to raise his own family here. “You could send your kids out to play, no matter where they are, because you knew someone is watching them. Everyone knew each other.”

Perla was able to repair her home. When she moved in in 2021, her home was classified as being in the 100-year floodplain, and her mortgage company required her to purchase flood insurance. She filed a claim shortly after the disaster and is nearly finished with repairs. 

She’s glad she can stay in Old Farm. But she worries that other residents without insurance may be forced to sell because they can’t afford repairs.

“This neighborhood’s worth saving. Black folks have worked this land for generations,” she said. “People have been here 30, 40 years. That’s legacy. That’s roots.”

Five Old Farm residents have already put their homes up for sale, Gilmore said. Foster will not be one of them.

“If I could get enough money, I’d leave,” Foster said. “But, we’d never get any value out of the house now, with its history.”

Foster took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

A long wait for help 

Many in the neighborhood, including Foster, are elderly and on fixed incomes. But even younger folks like 41-year-old Morgan Fielding, a remote tech worker, are struggling. 

She’s staring down up to $70,000 in repair costs for mold remediation, flooring, and other rebuilding costs. She also has not received any grant money from the N.C. Department of Public Safety, which would only provide up to $43,600 if approved in full.

Chitlik, who worked with the governor to establish the Chantal grants, acknowledges that the state funds available aren’t sufficient, and that families need more help.

“Obviously, many families have lost significantly more than that, and we need to keep fighting to make them whole,” she said. 

The rollout process for these state individual assistance grants has been rife with delays.

Fielding applied by the original Aug. 10 deadline and was promised a response within four to six weeks. After six weeks, she reached back out to the Department of Emergency Management and was told to wait another 45 days. 

Originally, Fielding says, her state caseworker told her to submit two contractors’ quotes for renovation costs, itemized by material. But, in October, she was told those quotes needed to be itemized by room. She was also told for the first time to submit proof that insurance had denied her claim, despite not having flood insurance in the first place. 

Foster has experienced similar delays. In October, he learned that none of the residents’ W-9s were correctly processed and that they needed to resubmit them.

A department spokesperson said the state Department of Emergency Management is still processing 86 Chantal recovery grant applications, and there’s still no date for when the money will be released.

“We often have back and forth with the applicants,” said Haines. “We do understand that it can be confusing for some people, especially during an event where they are under a lot of stress, which is why we encourage applicants to be in touch with their case managers.”

The North Carolina legislature’s failure to pass a budget also slowed relief efforts, Chitlik said. Chitlik is pushing for more disaster relief in the next state budget, including money for future disasters. She also wants the state to provide mitigation grants, traditionally a responsibility of FEMA, to potentially buy out properties in Old Farm and River Forest, another Durham neighborhood damaged by Chantal. 

The city has also begun long-term planning for future disasters, and is making infrastructure updates to reduce flooding risks, starting downtown, said Williams. There are currently no projects slated for Old Farm.

“This is nobody’s fault and everybody’s responsibility,” said Chitlik. “There’s limited precedent for state buyouts… but we are not going to leave Old Farm and River Forest behind.”

Foster is still waiting for state grant money. Meanwhile, one thing has changed for him: he now has flood insurance.  

When the floodplain maps of Durham County were redrawn, Foster’s home was reclassified and found to be within the 100-year floodplain. But Foster didn’t know that. 

The City of Durham and Durham County send out letters to homeowners when floodplain boundaries change, but Foster does not remember receiving such a letter. 

He found out about the reclassification only after Chantal struck, when he received a new letter from the city stating his home was in the floodplain. When he applied for an SBA loan to help with damage from Chantal, the SBA required him to get flood insurance.

It was the first time any agency made that request in the 40 years he lived in Old Farm.

Hino thinks more homeowners should be purchasing flood insurance, like Fred. 

“No matter how good our maps are, maps are never a perfect indicator of risk. Everyone should have flood insurance no matter where you live.”

Foster raised his family in Old Farm; he had his dream life and dream car. Then came Tropical Storm Chantal, forcing him to start over from scratch. 

“I knew this was where we were going to live or die,” he said. “Now, going down the street brings tears to my eyes.”

Pictured at top: Fred Foster is now living on the second floor of the home he has owned since 1985. Photo by Jack Regan — The 9th Street Journal